4x7=28 and here's how to end a hookup

Hello, men. I think we need to have a chat. 

Your last hookup may have been a serious girlfriend, someone you were casually dating, a friend-with-benefits, or someone you found on Craigslist. Whatever it was, it ended. You know that much.

Here's what you don't know:

THAT'S OKAY. 

If it was faltering, we were aware. If it ended, it's because it needed to. Something obviously wasn't right, or it would still be occurring. 

Now. here's something else you don't know. 

When a woman gets upset with you after it's over it is NOT because she still wants to be with you. It is NOT because she can't handle the fact that the flame has petered out. She is upset with you because you are denying her the most basic, most simplistic, one and only thing she wants:

RESPECT.

That's right. R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me respect. An acknowledgment that it happened and just a LITTLE BIT of validation that it existed- that there was ANY positivity in it at all. Which there was! There must have been! Or it wouldn't have happened more then once! (ok, twice if you were really fucked up. both times).

Y'all have this little habit of thinking the only way to handle the situation is to ignore the girl until she...what, takes a hint? Is that it? If you were friends, tell her what's up. Doesn't your friend deserve to know? And try this: if she meant something to you, at any point be it physical or even platonic. Let her know. Maybe it was the best sex you've ever had. Maybe it wasn't, but you like the way she listened when you spoke. Maybe you just like her tits. But if you just liked her tits, would you really have taken her out for breakfast in the morning? Would you really have called her on the phone just to talk? 

Maybe you would have. But you can STILL acknowledge the fact that it happened because you wanted it to. Most of us don't practice voodoo. Most of us are not dangling grapes before your lips, and the great majority of us are not slipping you roofies. Your penis did not fall into anyone's vagina. YOU PUT IT THERE. So you're not really foolin' anyone. 

It has been said before that there is a correct way to break up with someone. But a) that statement was apparently not very widespread and b) I'd like to make an addition:

There is a correct way to stop hooking up with someone. No matter how casual it was, it happened. Acknowledge that. Validate the experience. Honor it for what it was. You will come out the good guy. And isn't that what you're all so damn worried about to begin with?

This has happened to all of us way too many times for me to just accept it. I don't know how to reach them. I don't know how to make them understand. I don't know how to drill this into their brains.

All I can think of is flash-cards.